Holiday Essentials
by fyd818
Summary: ...These Christmas must-haves: Tree, ornaments, lights, candy-canes...and a Spanky kiss! RononTeyla, December 19th’s entry for HYAVSC!


Disclaimer: I don't own _Stargate: Atlantis_ or any places, things, characters, or ideas therein. (If I _did_ own _Atlantis_, Ronon and Teyla would be long and happily married with half a dozen kids, a dog, and no annoying TPTB to get in the way of what's meant to be.) I am writing this fic for entertainment purposes only, not monetary gain -- though reviews would be nice. LOL

Summary: ...These Christmas must-haves: Tree, ornaments, lights, candy-canes...and a Spanky kiss! RononTeyla, December 19th's entry for HYAVSC!

Rating: K+

Warnings: Fluffiness, cuteness, happiness, holiday cheeriness, and a Spanky kiss

Pairing: Ronon/Teyla

Spoilers: None

**Author's Note**: This is December 19th's entry for HYAVSC, or Have Yourself a Very Spanky Christmas. Affiliated with SAWS (Spanky A Week Summer), HYAVSC is all about bringing you Spanky fans a Christmas-themed Ronon/Teyla fic for each day, December 14-25. My main prompt word was _lights_, and I also used _tinsel, candy cane, ornaments,_ and_ star_. Big thanks to _jewel of athos_ for the summary! Thanks for reading this fic, I hope you enjoy it, and Merry Christmas to all!

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**Holiday Essentials**

_fyd818_

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Teyla Emmagan planted her hands on her hips and stared, wide-eyed, at the daunting task before her: A twelve-foot tall artificial Christmas tree, standing in the corner of the empty cafeteria. It had to be decorated before Atlantis's big Christmas party, which was only a few days away.

Next to her, Ronon Dex followed her gaze up to the pointed top of the tree. "_How_ do they expect us to decorate this?" he asked.

"I am -- not sure," Teyla admitted.

Every year a different team was assigned to decorate the tree. This year it was Teyla and Ronon's team's turn, but a few -- _problems_ had arisen before the tree even showed up in the city via the _Daedalus_. First of all, they were unable to get a real tree because it would not have survived the trip, so they had to get an artificial one. Then the other two members of their team, Lt. Col. John Sheppard and Dr. Rodney McKay, both got sick and didn't feel like helping decorate the tree. So it was left to Ronon and Teyla to make sure it was decorated and looked pretty in time for the party.

The task seemed impossible.

Ronon gazed around at the boxes lying around them, stacked on the floor, tables, and chairs. "This is crazy," he moaned.

"Do not tell me you are giving up without _trying_," Teyla said.

He glared at her with narrow green eyes. "I don't see _you_ jumping to get started."

Teyla went to the nearest box and pulled the lid off. "How hard can it be?" she asked, though she was trying to reassure herself as much as if not more than Ronon.

The tall Satedan came up behind her and peered over her shoulder. Reaching past her, he pulled out a much smaller box and studied the neat white writing on it: _Christmas lights. For indoor or outdoor use only_. "Lights. Makes sense for these to go on first." Ronon turned back to the tree, frowning as he stared up at the top again. "Now we just have to figure out a way to get to the top."

"We could stand on chairs," Teyla suggested.

"That might work." Ronon pulled over the nearest chair, stepped onto it, and reached up. The very tips of his fingers missed the top of the tree by a good two feet. "Or not."

Teyla stared at the tree, then the chair, then Ronon, working through a few things in her mind.

"Let's start at the bottom and work our way up," Dex suggested. "That way we can think about it."

"Sounds good." Taking the box from Ronon, she opened it and pulled out a white piece of Styrofoam, which the strand of lights were wound around from last year's use to keep them from getting tangled over the course of their year in storage. She started unwinding them, handing the plug end to Ronon so he could fit it into the Atlantian electrical socket Rodney had retrofitted for just that purpose.

The first few times around the tree went fine, until…

"Hold still!" Teyla grasped Ronon's shoulder with one hand so he'd follow her order.

"That pulls!" Ronon growled at her, trying to duck away from her other hand.

"If you would hold _still_, it would not!" Teyla replied testily. "Besides, I have no idea _how_ you managed to get these lights tangled in your _hair_…" This time she did give a deliberate tug, just because he was annoying her.

"Stop pulling!" Ronon batted her hand away and reached up to work on the tangled mess himself. "It was your idea to unwind the lights first, anyway. 'It'll be easier,' you said."

"I have done this as many times as you have," she retorted. "We will just learn from our mistakes."

"Mistakes get you killed," her friend grumbled, wincing when he yanked too hard on his own hair.

"Oh, for the sake of the Ancestors, let me do it." Shoving Ronon's hands away from his head, Teyla grasped the strand of lights in one hand, the troublesome lock of Ronon's hair in the other, and as gently as possible twisted until she freed one from the other.

Glaring at the lights with narrow eyes, Ronon snatched them from her grasp and growled, "I loosened them for you."

Rolling her lips to hold in her chuckle, Teyla let him finish stringing that strand as she went to open another box. This time, to keep the peace (and hopefully avoid another scene), she kept the lights wrapped around the foam and decided to feed the strand out to Ronon as he wrapped it around the tree. She wasn't quite sure how they'd manage the top -- yet -- but surely between them they'd come up with _something_.

The next four strands of lights went around the tree with no trouble. Now they were to the point where they could no longer reach, and though it looked like it would only take a couple more strands to finish it up, they were having trouble figuring out how to get to the top and still work their way around the tree, as they'd been doing.

At last Ronon spoke. "There's only one way I can see to do this, if you're willing." He very carefully didn't look at her.

Teyla felt her heart stumble for a few beats. "What?" she asked. Was it just her, or was that word a little -- _breathy_?

"You'll have to sit on my shoulders. It's the only way we can reach the top but still be mobile enough to go around the tree."

Suddenly her face felt very, very hot. "Okay," she said hesitantly. Quickly getting two more strands from their boxes, she kept one and set the other on a nearby table. "How do you want to do this?" she asked Ronon, clutching the lights for something to do with her hands.

Ronon came to kneel in front of her, his back to her. "Hop on," he invited.

Swallowing hard, Teyla followed his instructions, glad he couldn't see her face and the rosy glow it had taken on. She desperately hoped someone wouldn't walk through the cafeteria doors and find them like this. She could just imagine how the rumor mill would blow _that_ one out of proportion.

She yelped a little when Ronon's large hands easily folded over her thighs to hold her steady as he stood. The motion seemed effortless, as if he was carrying a small animal on his shoulders instead of a fully-grown woman. She started to snatch a handful of hair out of instinct, but stopped herself at the last second. She had no desire for a repeat of their earlier disagreement.

In the end, Ronon's idea worked perfectly. Together, they were just the right height to finish stringing the lights, though Teyla thought she might suffer permanently from her embarrassment, not to mention her fear that someone would walk in on them.

As soon as they finished the lights, Ronon knelt again so Teyla could climb off his shoulders. By the time he'd stood up and turned to face her, she'd busied herself with another box so she could hide her flaming cheeks from him for a few minutes.

"We should start putting the ornaments on now," Teyla said, toeing another box toward him.

"Do you think they go in any particular places, or do we just stick them wherever we think they'll look right?" Ronon dangled one from his fingers, watching the red ball flash in the early-afternoon sunlight filtering in the windows.

"I believe we should put them where we want," Teyla said, balancing a box of her own on one arm. "It did not look like there was any particular pattern on last year's tree." That had been a disaster in and of itself -- the tree had already been mostly dead by the time it had reached the city, so at Christmas it looked shriveled and completely dead. It had also exuded a peculiar smell that had taken days to air out of the cafeteria.

Eventually they ran into the same problem they'd had with the lights, and Teyla had to once more climb onto Ronon's shoulders. This time, however, they agreed to go ahead and put the star on top, then start the tinsel there and work their way _down_. Ronon fed the tinsel up to her with one hand while he held her steady with the other. By the time they'd finished decorating the top of the tree, they were working smoothly as if they'd been decorating trees that way their entire lives.

When Ronon knelt so she could get down, however, he caught her wrist before she could turn away. He stood slowly, reaching out to pluck some shiny gold-and-silver tinsel from her hair. He was smiling softly, and the look in her eyes made her breath catch somewhere in her chest, in a good way this time.

Shifting his hands from her hair to her face, Ronon cupped her cheeks and tilted his head down, still smiling as he leaned toward her.

Teyla swallowed hard, her eyelids instinctively dropping closed the moment she felt his warm breath on her face, the scent of peppermint there from the candy cane he'd nabbed from the basket on one of the tables earlier.

When his lips touched hers, she felt the world spin and tilt around her in a completely nice, wonderful way. Their duties to the unfinished tree vanished from her mind, lost in a wave of intense happiness that made her go weak in the knees. Without lifting his face from hers, Ronon shifted one hand down to her waist to hold her up.

They were so lost in each other they didn't notice the figure that started into the cafeteria, saw them, then slowly backed away, a small smile on his lips.

Heading back toward his room, John Sheppard allowed a full-blown grin to develop on his face as he triumphantly whispered to himself, "I love it when a plan comes together."

Back in the cafeteria, Teyla smiled as Ronon finally pulled away from her. _It will be a very merry Christmas, indeed._

~_The End_~


End file.
